GITANOS, or Egyptians, is the name by which the Gypsies have been most generally
known in Spain, in the ancient as well as in the modern period, but various
other names have been and still are applied to them; for example, New Castilians,
Germans, and Flemings; the first of which titles probably originated after
the name of Gitano had begun to be considered a term of reproach and infamy.
They may have thus designated themselves from an unwillingness to utter,
when speaking of themselves, the detested expression 'Gitano,' a word which
seldom escapes their mouths; or it may have been applied to them first by
the Spaniards, in their mutual dealings and communication, as a term less
calculated to wound their feelings and to beget a spirit of animosity than
the other; but, however it might have originated, New Castilian, in course
of time, became a term of little less infamy than Gitano; for, by the law
of Philip the Fourth, both terms are forbidden to be applied to them under
severe penalties.

That they were called Germans, may be accounted for, either by the supposition
that their generic name of Rommany was misunderstood and mispronounced by
the Spaniards amongst whom they came, or from the fact of their having passed
through Germany in their way to the south, and bearing passports and letters
of safety from the various German states. The title of Flemings, by which
at the present day they are known in various parts of Spain, would probably
never have been bestowed upon them but from the circumstance of their having
been designated or believed to be Germans, - as German and Fleming are considered
by the ignorant as synonymous terms.

Amongst themselves they have three words to distinguish them and their race
in general: Zincalo, Romano, and Chai; of the first two of which something
has been already said.

They likewise call themselves 'Cales,' by which appellation indeed they are
tolerably well known by the Spaniards, and which is merely the plural termination
of the compound word Zincalo, and signifies, The black men. Chai is a
modification of the word Chal, which, by the Gitanos of Estremadura, is applied
to Egypt, and in many parts of Spain is equivalent to 'Heaven,' and which
is perhaps a modification of 'Cheros,' the word for heaven in other dialects
of the Gypsy language. Thus Chai may denote, The men of Egypt, or, The sons
of Heaven. It is, however, right to observe, that amongst the Gitanos, the
word Chai has frequently no other signification than the simple one of
'children.'

It is impossible to state for certainty the exact year of their first appearance
in Spain; but it is reasonable to presume that it was early in the fifteenth
century; as in the year 1417 numerous bands entered France from the north-east
of Europe, and speedily spread themselves over the greatest part of that
country. Of these wanderers a French author has left the following graphic
description: (16)

'On the 17th of April 1427, appeared in Paris twelve penitents of Egypt,
driven from thence by the Saracens; they brought in their company one hundred
and twenty persons; they took up their quarters in La Chapelle, whither the
people flocked in crowds to visit them. They had their ears pierced, from
which depended a ring of silver; their hair was black and crispy, and their
women were filthy to a degree, and were sorceresses who told fortunes.'

Such were the people who, after traversing France and scaling the sides of
the Pyrenees, poured down in various bands upon the sunburnt plains of Spain.
Wherever they had appeared they had been looked upon as a curse and a pestilence,
and with much reason. Either unwilling or unable to devote themselves to
any laborious or useful occupation, they came like flights of wasps to prey
upon the fruits which their more industrious fellow-beings amassed by the
toil of their hands and the sweat of their foreheads; the natural result
being, that wherever they arrived, their fellow-creatures banded themselves
against them. Terrible laws were enacted soon after their appearance in France,
calculated to put a stop to their frauds and dishonest propensities; wherever
their hordes were found, they were attacked by the incensed rustics or by
the armed hand of justice, and those who were not massacred on the spot,
or could not escape by flight, were, without a shadow of a trial, either
hanged on the next tree, or sent to serve for life in the galleys; or if
females or children, either scourged or mutilated.

The consequence of this severity, which, considering the manners and spirit
of the time, is scarcely to be wondered at, was the speedy disappearance
of the Gypsies from the soil of France.

Many returned by the way they came, to Germany, Hungary, and the woods and
forests of Bohemia; but there is little doubt that by far the greater portion
found a refuge in the Peninsula, a country which, though by no means so rich
and fertile as the one they had quitted, nor offering so wide and ready a
field for the exercise of those fraudulent arts for which their race had
become so infamously notorious, was, nevertheless, in many respects, suitable
and congenial to them. If there were less gold and silver in the purses of
the citizens to reward the dexterous handler of the knife and scissors amidst
the crowd in the market-place; if fewer sides of fatted swine graced the
ample chimney of the labourer in Spain than in the neighbouring country;
if fewer beeves bellowed in the plains, and fewer sheep bleated upon the
hills, there were far better opportunities afforded of indulging in wild
independence. Should the halberded bands of the city be ordered out to quell,
seize, or exterminate them; should the alcalde of the village cause the tocsin
to be rung, gathering together the villanos for a similar purpose, the wild
sierra was generally at hand, which, with its winding paths, its caves, its
frowning precipices, and ragged thickets, would offer to them a secure refuge
where they might laugh to scorn the rage of their baffled pursuers, and from
which they might emerge either to fresh districts or to those which they
had left, to repeat their ravages when opportunity served.

After crossing the Pyrenees, a very short time elapsed before the Gypsy hordes
had bivouacked in the principal provinces of Spain. There can indeed be little
doubt, that shortly after their arrival they made themselves perfectly acquainted
with all the secrets of the land, and that there was scarcely a nook or retired
corner within Spain, from which the smoke of their fires had not arisen,
or where their cattle had not grazed. People, however, so acute as they have
always proverbially been, would scarcely be slow in distinguishing the provinces
most adapted to their manner of life, and most calculated to afford them
opportunities of practising those arts to which they were mainly indebted
for their subsistence; the savage hills of Biscay, of Galicia, and the Asturias,
whose inhabitants were almost as poor as themselves, which possessed no superior
breed of horses or mules from amongst which they might pick and purloin many
a gallant beast, and having transformed by their dexterous scissors, impose
him again upon his rightful master for a high price, - such provinces, where,
moreover, provisions were hard to be obtained, even by pilfering hands, could
scarcely be supposed to offer strong temptations to these roving visitors
to settle down in, or to vex and harass by a long sojourn.

Valencia and Murcia found far more favour in their eyes; a far more fertile
soil, and wealthier inhabitants, were better calculated to entice them; there
was a prospect of plunder, and likewise a prospect of safety and refuge,
should the dogs of justice be roused against them. If there were the populous
town and village in those lands, there was likewise the lone waste, and
uncultivated spot, to which they could retire when danger threatened them.
Still more suitable to them must have been La Mancha, a land of tillage,
of horses, and of mules, skirted by its brown sierra, ever eager to afford
its shelter to their dusky race. Equally suitable, Estremadura and New Castile;
but far, far more, Andalusia, with its three kingdoms, Jaen, Granada, and
Seville, one of which was still possessed by the swarthy Moor, - Andalusia,
the land of the proud steed and the stubborn mule, the land of the savage
sierra and the fruitful and cultivated plain: to Andalusia they hied, in
bands of thirties and sixties; the hoofs of their asses might be heard clattering
in the passes of the stony hills; the girls might be seen bounding in lascivious
dance in the streets of many a town, and the beldames standing beneath the
eaves telling the 'buena ventura' to many a credulous female dupe; the men
the while chaffered in the fair and market-place with the labourers and chalanes,
casting significant glances on each other, or exchanging a word or two in
Rommany, whilst they placed some uncouth animal in a particular posture which
served to conceal its ugliness from the eyes of the chapman. Yes, of all
provinces of Spain, Andalusia was the most frequented by the Gitano race,
and in Andalusia they most abound at the present day, though no longer as
restless independent wanderers of the fields and hills, but as residents
in villages and towns, especially in Seville.